Survey and Monitoring of Onion Thrips (Thrips tabaci) Lindeman

Abstract

Thrips is a most important global pest of onion crop they are direct impact of onion yield and quality. The nymph and adult of thrips feed on leaves by piercing and rasping the leaf tissues and causes lengthwise, silvery stippling or blotching on the onion leaves, resulting in the loss of chlorophyll and reduced photosynthetic efficiency. Thrips attack onion at all the stages of crop growth stages but their count increases from bulb initiation and remains high up to bulb development and maturity. Onion thrips can also transmit several plant pathogens in onion crop that reduced onion bulb size and quality. The above surveys objective to evaluate the damage percentage of thrips in onion crops. Survey was conducted during Kharif 2022 and Rabi 2022-23. The maximum thrips damage rating scale of 3(45%) was recorded at 75 DAT in the Kharif season and Rabi season at 75 DAT thrips damage rating scale was recorded at 4 (65%).The survey result show that the thrips population and damage percentage increased due to increased temperature and relative humidity.